According to official statistics, approximately every fourth subject of the Russian Federation has a GDP per capita that puts in on par with third world countries like Sudan, Nigeria, and Guatemala, and all of them are suffering as a result from rising crime and increasing interest in emigration.

Among these failing places, which should be called “zones of national disasters,” the Russian nationalist RNE portal says, are predominantly ethnic Russian areas like Bryansk, Ivanovo, Kirov, and Kurgan oblasts, Stavropol and Transbaikal krays, and non-Russian republics like Altay, Mordvinia, and Buryatia.

Not only is Moscow sucking them dry, but their collapse is contributing to ever larger capital flight. In the first seven months of 2015, net capital flight increased 1.5 times from the same period a year earlier to 13.1 billion US dollars. And over the past year, more than 2,000 “dollar millionaires” moved abroad with their money.

But it is not only the wealthy who are thinking about leaving. Ever more people and especially the young are too, sparking predictions that Russia in the coming years faces its largest emigration in history. Among them are the most educated, something that will cost Russia its future.

The Russian nationalist site argues that the Kremlin “is transforming the entire country into ‘a zone of national disaster.’ By the most optimistic predictions, the Russian Federation will need not less than a decade to compensate for the fall of incomes over the last three years and return at least to the level of 2014.”

But “in reality,” RNE continues, economists say that Russia faces “at a minimum, 20 years of economic stagnation.” Kremlin propagandists argue otherwise, but “the more pragmatic part of the electorate doesn’t believe these promises and is either packing its bags or experiencing ever greater anger as a result of the constantly worsening quality of life.”

Related

How long before we see a headline “More than 30 Dwarfstanian regions now at third world levels economically”?????

“Ever more people and especially the young are too, sparking predictions
that Russia in the coming years faces its largest emigration in history.
Among them are the most educated, something that will cost Russia its
future.”
But where will they emigrate to? I don’t see the EU
admitting tens of thousands of Dwarfstanians as it already has its hands
full with the Syrian and African migrants, and others. Nor will the US,
what with Trump having pledged to slash immigration. Canada won’t
shoulder the burden alone. And Kyiv would be mad to allow so many
Dwarfstanians into the country, at least some of whom will have hostile
intentions.
It looks like they will be stuck where they are.

Tchitcherine

” I don’t see the EU
admitting tens of thousands of Dwarfstanians”
Unfortunately I think they will, especially Germany.

veth

And when they live in Germany, telling that Russia is an paradise………….

veth

Putin to Siberians last year: Don’t buy cars, because you don’t have roads………………….and the Siberians applauded, what a wise leader we have!

Dagwood Bumstead

Buying an old T-34 or T-54 would make far more sense given conditions in many parts of Siberia, so in that respect the dwarf is right in saying “Don’t buy cars”. Of course, saying “We will build good roads” and actually doing so would be a far better policy,but the dwarf won’t waste any money on that sort of thing. He prefers to squander what’s left of Dwarfstan’s financial reserves on his senseless wars in Syria and the Donbas.

veth

Or like Ukraine, defend yourself against Russia, and with hardly money, repair roads countrywide at the same time…………..

Oknemfrod

Not to mention how much keeping Crimea afloat costs, along with the Kerch “bridge” being built, as it’s getting increasingly clear, solely for military purposes.

The Maglev trains aside (for the Russians, it’s pure sci-fi stuff), the total length of the conventional freeways in Japan is 8050 km. In Russia, the figure is … 806 – provided that given their “quality”, they can be even called “freeways”. The disparity stands out even more starkly considering that the area of only European part of Russia is 4000k square km versus 378k for the entire Japan. Linearly, it translates into a 4:1 ratio. So, for every kilometer of its territory, Japan has 40 times more freeways than the European part of Russia.

Brent

The “Russian MIR”…..I wonder if this is how “Screwball’s” yard in South Philly looks?

He dwells in the much more affluent Philly’s NE subs. It’s impossible to find anything comparable to the “russkiy mir”, at any level, even in the downright worst Philly slums.

Dagwood Bumstead

I thought Screwie lives in a mud hut in the bogs surrounding St Petersburg, from where he commutes to his ul. Savushkina cubicle?

Oknemfrod

One doesn’t have to live in Russia to work for a FSB troll factory, does one? Methinks, though, it’s not the case here but merely a case of a person who’s gotten obsessed, under a number of influences, with a certain idee fixe (“novorossiya”, etc.) and doesn’t have enough marbles to separate wheat from chaff.

Dagwood Bumstead

True, but if he does live in the decadent US, a country which he obviously hates, why doesn’t he move to Dwarfstan where everything is oh so much better?

zorbatheturk

Guatemala at least has color and some charm, which cannot be said for the RuSSia.

Vol Ya

Another interesting statistic, less than 50 percent of Russians have an indoor toilet, if you do not count the major urban cities. This shows you how
much progress russia has made in the past 50 year, None. Just
another sign that russia is dying. The birth rate is falling, the mortality
rate is rising, drug and alcohol use is on the rise, the youth see no future in
Russia, putin has destroyed that. Well done dictator putin, you have destroyed
your own country, there is no need for any foreign country to conquer Russia as
Russia is already brain dead. If russia was such a great country, then why do
putin’s children and lavrov’s children live in the west, why don’t they stay in
russia and live there?

About the Source

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. He has served as director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn, and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. Earlier he has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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